File No. 861.00/1132
The Consul General at Moscow (Summers) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 21, 1.45 a.m.]
182. Poole submits the following report of his recent personal observations in the Don:
Bolshevik successes in the Don are due to disaffection among the younger unindustrious Cossacks recently returned from the front (fully explained fourth paragraph my No. 3 from Rostov dated January 141) who have responded to Bolshevik propaganda and risen against their fathers and the Kaledin government. It is an internal Cossack revolution rather than a Bolshevik military invasion, though the military movement is naturally from contiguous Bolshevik territory inward towards Novocherkassk, the provincial capital.
After three days with the command of the forces operating against Novocherkassk from the north I left them on February 13 at a point sixty miles from their objective, their front line being then twenty miles further on. They were elated by victory and pressing vigorously forward. Regular military units cannot be discerned among them; the control exercised by the revolutionary committee is at times uncertain. But individual determination and fighting spirit are high.
[Page 622]If the reports are true, as they probably are, that many other Bolshevik forces are in control at Taganrog and Tikhoretskaya, the key points south, west, and east of Rostov, Novocherkassk is isolated and must capitulate. This will mean jeopardy “League for the Defense of our Native Land and Liberty “and probably also of the Southeastern monarchy [federation], as Bolshevikism is as prevalent among the young Cossacks of the Kuban and Terek as among those of the Don. I heard reports of serious disorders in both those regions. Poole.
- Not printed.↩